Opinion on Kim Davis

Everyone has seen or heard a disobedient child before; they’re loud and obnoxious but never for good reasons. Once, when I was in a store, a little boy was mad at his mother for giving a toy to his little brother instead of him. As many times as the mom explained to him that his brother was acting appropriately and therefore deserved a toy, he continued to scream and cry and tried to take the toy.

It seems that Kim Davis, county clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, has tried the same tactic. This woman made the news by denying same sex couples’ marriage licenses based on her Christian beliefs and defending her actions with the First Amendment right to religious freedom. She was brought to court by the couples and was later arrested and remained in jail for five days. There were two very different reactions to this: conservative Christians stood behind her in admiration and the rest of the population had mixed feelings of amusement and distaste.

She was allowed to return to her job afterward under the condition that she no longer interfered with people’s right to marry. The judge at her trial made sure that the couples’ licenses in question were delivered and Davis’ deputies would be issuing licenses to same sex couples in the future.

We all thought we had reached the end of the story that seemed to have come from the Onion, when under further inspection of the licenses we found that Kim Davis has gone through the same sex couples’ forms and removed her name as well as Rowan county’s from all documents. Some have argued that this makes a two-tier system of marriages and discriminates against same sex couples. It is debatable whether these licenses can be considered equal to the ones given to heterosexual couples.

The ACLU is fighting for Davis to be punished for meddling with the papers after pledging not to and for interfering with Brian Mason, her deputy clerk, and his work issuing licenses.

No one likes to hear the screaming child in the middle of the aisle at the store, but it’s a long battle for the mother that has to deal with one.